Exocytosis
by llacerta
Summary: Tough, desperate, awful situations have the ability to change people, to transform them into something unrecognisable. Something horrific. Is there any way back when one has been pushed to the edge of their sanity, or is the fall into madness inevitable?
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note**

****I've wanted to write this for a long time, and with _Monsters University _coming out next year, I figured I'd better get in there. (Yes, I realise MU is a prequel and my story is more of a sequel, but either way, I don't want the upcoming film to influence my writing at the moment.) It's been a long time since I've written fanfiction, and this is probably the last one I'm ever going to write. It just sort of needs to be done, and I say that completely selfishly- I'm writing this for my own sake more than anyone else's. I just needed this story to be down on paper, just so I can know that it's there, and I know that after I graduate, it'll be difficult to find the time to commit to writing this thing. To say it's been years in the making would be an understatement.

However, I'm going for a no-holds-barred approach with this one. This is not going to be a particularly pleasant story, for the most part. If you're very fond of Randall and don't like the idea of bad things happening to him (or him doing bad things, for that matter) then I wouldn't recommend continuing. Saying that, I've fantasised about how dark it's going to be and so on, but it might not end up quite so bad. Either way, you've been warned.

I not only readily welcome but encourage critique. From major stuff ("Randall would never say that!") to minor stuff ("the way you've phrased that is stupid"), I implore you to let me know what you think. I haven't written the whole thing yet, so any advice I can use for future chapters is most helpful.

Finally, apologies for the brevity of this chapter, and for this lengthy introduction. It's difficult to put into words how much this means to me- how much Randall means to me. It's heavy stuff. Hopefully I'll be able to convey that in this story.

**Chapter 1: A Tasty Morsel **

The shovel had last been used to dig their dilapidated truck out of the mud when it had become stuck the previous day. Dried flecks of swamp goo were scattered through the air as the rusty implement was raised and then brought down heavily; the woman was strong from her years of physical, rough living, and her aim was sound.

As the flat side of the shovel flattened Randall's forefront frond, smacking him slightly left of the centre of his skull, he cried out in pain and fear. His vision seemed to be stuck for a moment, fixated on a grimy pot bubbling away on the humans' makeshift stove, though he did not comprehend what it was, or where he was, or, for a moment, who he was. He was in an almost ultimate state of being, when physicality is the only experience that one can perceive, and this physicality was being harshly abused.

The shovel had been raised and swung low again, something else that Randall had not perceived, so that when the blunt edge caught first his raised arm and then his cheek below the eye, knocking two teeth out, it felt as though time had not progressed since the last hit. He cried out, louder this time, the metallic tang of blood encroaching on his senses and curling down his throat.

A final hit caused his vision to fail. He felt the ground seemingly rise up to meet his body, and his stomach emptied itself. There was no last hurrah, no flash of life before his eyes, no sweet memories of home and family being brought to the forefront to comfort him in his last moments. There was just blood and vomit and pain. It was only at this point that he noticed a very loud ringing in his ears, a screeching almost, as though his brain was howling at this barrage of sensations. He passed out.

The woman who had inflicted most of this pain (it would be incorrect to say that Randall was not already in pain to some, comparatively minor, degree before his encounter with this human) was entirely unaware of the creature before her being even remotely sentient; she was barely sentient herself. She turned to her son, beckoning him over, and the two stared at their prize for a few moments before glancing at the bubbling pot and thinking of their empty stomachs.

Despite her general lack of intelligence, this woman could see that there was something different about this 'gator'. As her mother had always said, poison was hidden in the most appealing of places, and so she knew to perform a taste test of sorts. Her eyes scanned the small, dirty kitchen surface they had in the trailer, and she picked up a nasty-looking serrated knife. She gave Randall a nudge with her foot and, satisfied that her catch was unconscious, bent down, grabbed his middle frond, and sliced it in half. Blood poured out of the open wound.

The human woman lobbed this fleshy handful into the bubbling pot, unconcerned by just how strange the creature in her trailer was. Money had been tight as of late, so any potential source of food that was free and even remotely tasty was not going to be wasted. She turned to the pot, keeping an eye on its contents and stirring it on occasion. In the meanwhile, her son had stepped forward and approached Randall's unconscious form.

Picking up a crowbar of sorts that was propped up against a small table, the boy gave Randall a prod and warily eyed him, acting as though he expected this lifeless form to suddenly leap up and attack. After a moment or two of slight concern, he sniffed the air, the strange smell from the pot being sucked up into his nostrils, and shrugged. This thing looked like some sort of swamp mutation- stranger things had happened- and anyway, did it really matter what it was? It was most likely dead. And it sort of looked tasty, in an alien kind of way.

The boy was distracted from his musings by his mother howling and gagging behind him. He turned to see her bent over their counter, spitting with such fervour that it sounded as though she was trying to detach her own teeth. It became apparent that she'd tried a bite of the creature's frond and hadn't liked it.

"Get that thing outta ma trailer!" she wailed at her son, clutching her stomach. The boy rolled his eyes, sighed, and tucked his hands into his pockets.

"Aw, but momma, I don't wan-"

"Get it outta here! _NOW_!"


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2 – Nibbling Daemons**

A rock sat on top of his head, a rock of gargantuan proportions, its weight pressing down, crushing his skull, compressing his brain. The pain was so great that the rock seemed also to squeeze his neck, his lungs, making only short, shallow, desperate breaths possible.

Randall twitched a hand. If he could just get that awfully heavy rock off of his head, if he could just release himself from this constriction, this cage that he felt himself trapped in, then he'd feel much better.

The darkness surrounding him suddenly seemed sickeningly claustrophobic. He tried to move his arm again- he just needed to get this rock _off_, dammit- but it seemed awkwardly unresponsive, moving only slightly, as though its circulation had been cut off. The ground tilted with every exertion, and bile hovered in his throat, threatening to be ejaculated at any moment.

Randall had a feeling that some time had passed, for whatever reason. The feeling unnerved him, as though he'd fallen unconscious again without realising it. But this was a secondary concern- right now, something had to be done about this rock, about the pain, the suffocation. It seemed to have eased slightly, but its presence was still there, weighing Randall down.

He cracked an eye open; it was only at this point that he understood that his eyes had been closed. What he saw, however, wasn't of much use- just some smudged, dark shapes. Everything seemed to have a vague, indefinable mist hanging over it, obscuring the outline of whatever it was before him so that he could not identify it. His instincts kicked in, and Randall felt the urge to move somewhere, anywhere, as long as it was hidden and out of the way and secluded.

The fact that not all of his limbs were moving when he was clearly instructing them to did strike Randall as being horribly wrong, but he managed enough movement that he was able to shuffle himself forward, through what felt like ripped plastic and other synthetic materials, and eventually onto softer, more spongy ground. He had the sense of being somewhere quite musty; his mouth hung open slightly and the air he dragged into his lungs hung low and heavy, with an almost viscous texture. The rock still weighed heavily on his head as he struggled along.

Randall crawled for only a minute or two, though time dragged as much as the heavy air, so that he couldn't help but believe that hours upon hours had passed. When he came across a barky texture underfoot, his fingers rubbing rough against something in front of him, he paused. Instinctually he relied on his vision to give him some clues as to what he had come across, so he stared intently with the one eye he could manage to keep open. However, there was something just not quite right going on here- his eye was picking something up, for certain, but he wasn't perceiving anything. It was as though someone had placed a thick brick wall right between his eyes and his brain. The feeling made Randall panic; it was frustrating yet scary. He suddenly wondered if he were in fact dead. It seemed like something a dead person would feel, if a dead person could feel.

He closed his eye- it was no good to him for the time being. Instead, he reached out a hand and felt about in front of him. The ground dipped slightly, into a sort of shallow ditch, and Randall identified the scratchy material he was grasping as being dead leaves. He dragged himself forward a little more, heaving the bottom half of his body towards his top half so that he curled into a crescent moon shape. The pain he felt in every movement was quite overwhelming, to the point that with larger movements, the depths of unconscious began to encroach on his senses. His eyes were still closed, and yet there was a distinguishable difference between the darkness of lidded eyes and the darkness that had yet again begun to creep its way across him, the darkness from which there might be no return.

Randall's comprehension of where he was, who he was, or even what time of day it was had been limited since his arrival in the Human World. His mind had been focused wholly on the startling, awful present- sensation upon sensation that he could neither control nor influence. Yet the last thoughts he managed to scrape together before fainting again considered how the leaves he rested upon scratched and bristled against his scales. They felt as though they were clawing at him, like little scavenger daemons picking and nibbling at his body.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3 - Hunger**

He didn't know how long he'd been out- it could've been minutes or days. But when Randall started to come round, he felt something in the pit of his stomach. It was a surge of fear, of anxiety. For some reason, he sensed danger, not because he'd seen anything (he still couldn't see much at all). Perhaps it was a sound, something he hadn't consciously processed, maybe even a smell.

Whatever it was, it set him on edge. Adrenaline pumped through his veins. His body was reacting to this bewildering onslaught of pain and sensory information by finally kick-starting his fight or flight instincts. Admittedly this was a little late, most likely due to just how fatigued he'd been, but it was enough to get him going. As his heart pumped madly in his chest, Randall felt the agony of his multiple injuries, in particular his aching head, dull somewhat. The anxiety rose again; he had to move. Now.

The shallow ditch he'd been lying in had been formed by the protruding roots of a large tree. Randall shuffled forward on all eights, the first movements causing him to sharply inhale through gritted teeth, but with a bit more shuffling he gained some momentum.

In front of him was the tree. He grappled with its roots and eventually found the trunk, reaching out to feel what was in front of him as his vision failed. Although he was struggling to think at all, he relied on his instincts to guide him, and trying to get as high up as possible just felt right- away from whatever dangers might be lurking on the ground. The rough bark of the tree rubbed against Randall's bloodied scales as he began, slowly but surely, to climb up its trunk, grabbing hold of branches when he passed them to hoist himself up further.

After he'd felt as though he was some way up, he paused, resting on a branch and panting with exhaustion. Climbing usually came naturally to the lizard monster, about as naturally as turning invisible or burning microwave meals, but even the single limb that had been damaged during the attack- his uppermost left arm- made this manoeuvre feel peculiar and stilted, as though he was off-balance.

As Randall lay on this branch, his lower body still wrapped around the trunk of the tree, he opened his one good eye as best he could and looked around. Adrenaline was still coursing through his veins and he felt his mind sharpen, if just for a little while.

It was dawn and the sky was glowing orange. A glance downwards indicated that he was some way off the ground, and a scan of the scene around him made Randall realise just how lucky he'd been in happening across one of the thickest trees in the area; most of the other trees around seemed to have thin, drooping branches.

It was then that he realised the full extent of his predicament. All around him, as far as he could see, were swamplands. No sign of civilisation aside from a small yellow square glowing through the trees that Randall, with some squinting, identified as the window of the trailer he'd escaped from, now some one hundred metres away.

He remembered with sickening vivacity the feeling of metal clanging upon his skull and winced.

Having had a moment to digest his surroundings, he now focused on himself. He knew he had a broken arm- he could see either the radius of his forearm sticking out slightly, though it hadn't pierced the skin, and it was painful to touch. His legs seemed fine, if a little bruised and sore. He used his good hands to gently brush his torso, checking for anything untoward. Aside from some cuts and scratches, several of which would have worried him with their depth if not for his other injuries, all was well.

Now, his head. Even in his confused and exhausted state, Randall realised that this was where the worst of the damage was. He raised his right arm and felt for his face, starting with the right side. This wasn't a good idea- it was his right eye that refused to open, and the wetness that he felt upon rubbing his hand across his jaw made his stomach lurch. He raised his hand further and reached for where his eye was supposed to be…

Randall exhaled, letting out a breath he hadn't realised he'd been holding.

It was there. Swollen and bloody, yes, but his eye was still intact- well, at least to the point where it hadn't been removed from its socket entirely. Whether it would ever function properly again was another matter.

The tip of Randall's fingers now brushed against a strange new ridge that seemed to run in between his eyes, coming across yet more wetness.

No, no. He didn't want to know.

He laid his head on the branch, letting his right arm swing down below him, blood dripping from his fingers. This was all just a little too much, and the adrenaline that had got him up the tree in the first place seemed to have worn off; with every breath, he felt the pain returning, and his head thumped. He closed his eyes- he'd rest just for a moment.

* * *

Randall's first few days in the swamp went by in a haze of pain, blood and fear. After the initial shock, his strategy had been to find a safe place to hide- staying up in the trees wasn't a great plan as the foliage wasn't thick enough to hide his form unless he climbed particularly high, in which case the branches grew thin and struggled to support his weight. So, to his frustration, Randall found himself having to slink around on the boggy, damp ground, trying his best to avoid getting unnecessarily wet in case his injuries were to become infected. Despite his efforts, some of his cuts seemed inflamed, and one particularly deep gash across his chest often oozed with pus. Nevertheless, he somehow managed to keep his head dry, and the weather had been clear since his arrival in the Human World which helped matters somewhat. However, the lack of rain meant that finding a source of water was an immediate concern, and fortunately it didn't take him too much pained ambling to come across a small stream with which to wash out the worst of his injuries.

Food was also an immediate problem; a mixture of stress and lack of sleep meant that Randall hadn't eaten during his last two days in Monstropolis, something he chastised himself for many times in his first fortnight as an exile. If there was something worse than the pain, it was the constant gnawing feeling in his stomach.

This led Randall to his first big dilemma in the Human World: should he risk venturing back to the trailer to rifle through the humans' garbage? The thought of going anywhere near them (or their shovel) panicked the lizard monster, but even just after his first day without any food, he began seriously considering it as an option. Catching food for himself was near impossible in his state, and even if he had caught something, he had no real idea of how to start a fire to cook it.

And so it was on the second night that Randall decided to risk his life and return to the trailer. By this point his body was almost entirely covered in swamp muck- only the top of his head above his jaw had remained relatively clean- and so he blended in rather well with his environment. He hadn't tried _actually _blending in; suffering from exhaustion and feeling like he was near-starving, alongside the obvious injuries to his head, meant that even attempting to do so would have been foolish and a waste of what little energy he had left.

Randall approached the edge of the trees that lined a small clearing in which the trailer was situated. As soon as he spied the silhouette of a human through the blinds of the window, his heart gave a leap. The sight of humans made him feel sick to his stomach.

He swallowed, the metallic tang of blood rising in his throat. No matter how much water he'd drunk from that stream, he just hadn't been able to get rid of the taste of blood. Perhaps some food would do the trick.

As if on cue, his stomach growled loudly. Randall grimaced. If there was one thing that could convince him to muster up enough bravery to head towards that trailer again, it was knowing that if he didn't, he'd starve.

The human seemed to be sitting down now- only the top of its head was visible through the window. Randall wasn't sure where the other one had got to, but he wasn't going to hang around to find out. Gritting his teeth, he geared himself up and began to quickly crawl forward, slinking through the long grass, his movements similar to that of a large cat stalking its prey, except with a heaviness and slump to his torso that made him a touch less elegant.

He was heading for what looked like a pile of garbage round the back of the trailer- the pile of garbage he assumed he'd originally been dumped in himself. He growled; if only he'd had the hindsight, or faculties, for that matter, to have had a look through the rubbish at the time.

Randall approached the pile of garbage and immediately began rifling through, desperately splitting open any bags he came across and sifting through the putrid smelling remains. He came across what looked like a half-eaten hunk of bread and, after the briefest of inspections, shoved it into his mouth. It was both disgusting and yet satisfying- his body was so desperate for nutrition of any sort that what usually would have made him gag in repulsion was instead forced down and almost relished.

He spent another minute or two rifling through the garbage, but there wasn't much- these humans were poor and knew not to waste food. Randall's initially frantic movements calmed down as he realised that this had been a waste of time and energy.

Suddenly he heard the rumble of an engine. He turned his head to see a truck approaching from the other direction. Randall's good eye widened and he let out a short gasp before making a break for it. He attempted to scuttle back towards the trees as quickly as possible, but his movements were sluggish in comparison to his usual agility. He just didn't have anything left in him.

The truck had come to a halt outside of the trailer and a human stepped out from the cab. Randall was only four or five metres away from the trees and would have made it if the human, who he later recognised as the woman from his first gruesome encounter, hadn't noticed how their rubbish had been strewn all over the ground at the side of her pathetic abode. The human looked up and around, suspecting that this was the work of a raccoon or some other small animal, and it was in this moment that she spotted movement in the grass by the trees.

The woman quickly strode back to her truck, her eyes still firmly on the point where she'd seen the grass part, and grabbed a gun from the cab before jogging forwards into the trees.

By this point, Randall had made it into the relative darkness and safety of the foliage, but the trees around him were not dense and hence he could still be spotted by a searching eye if it knew what to look for. He knew the human was not far behind and so he pressed forward, scampering onwards as fast as he could, his limbs screaming at him in agony, his breaths short and sharp, and his head pounding.

Just then he heard footsteps behind him. It was her- she'd followed after him- he hadn't been quick enough...

The footsteps ceased and Randall felt a gun being aimed at him.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4 - Instincts**

He zigzagged left and right as much as his broken form would allow him to; he refused to be a sitting duck.

A gunshot was fired. Randall carried on moving but was waiting for something, searing pain perhaps, something worse than he was currently experiencing. And yet nothing happened. She'd missed.

He ran forward faster, now panting heavily, weaving through the trees and undergrowth. The ground suddenly became sticky and he fell into a boggy area, writhing as the mud squelched around his scales. Yet Randall didn't give up, and so he continued to struggle, through the boggy ground and finally onto more solid earth.

He carried on further for as long as he could, but eventually had to admit defeat. Collapsing into a heap, Randall wheezed with exertion, his hands shaking and his legs feeling like jelly. This was it. He was done for.

After some time, he realised that the woman didn't seem to be after him anymore. Maybe he'd lost her in the darkness.

Despite this, Randall didn't feel relieved. He'd avoided dying for now, sure, but a sudden bought of light-headedness reminded him that if he didn't eat something soon, it wouldn't be long before he'd be in an even worse predicament.

Randall began crawling forward again. Every ounce of his physicality protested against this, his body screaming for rest and nourishment, but he persevered and soon came across a parting in the trees which gave way to a clearing. His initial fear was that he'd gone round in a circle and had ended up back at the humans' trailer, but this was somewhere new. Instead of a trailer, a small, dilapidated shack stood in the middle of this clearing, leaning badly to one side and surrounded by overgrown bushes and plants. Yet there were clear signs of habitation; Randall could just about make out a lean-to which was full of freshly chopped wood, and a twirl of smoke rose up from the shack's crumbling chimney.

His immediate reaction was to get away- his rather unpleasant encounters with humans in the past couple of days were enough to last him a lifetime as far as he was concerned. But something stopped him from turning tail and fleeing: just in front of the shack was a sizeable yet rickety pen which housed a good dozen or so…things. Creatures of some sort. Randall couldn't quite identify them beyond the fact that they were feathered and seemed reminiscent of some of the flying monsters back home. Their clucks and squawks reminded Randall oddly of Fungus, for some reason; a particularly jarring association as this was the first time that his little red assistant had entered his mind since he'd been thrown into the Human World.

Randall shook his head and growled, narrowing his one good eye. Now was not the time to be thinking about that sort of stuff, and this was a prime opportunity he did not want to miss. If he could just nab one of these feathered creatures, it might well make a decent meal. And he was _ravenous. _

Randall looked left and right, and then peered as intently as he could at the shack, trying his utmost to identify any movement or other signs of human activity. There was almost certainly a human inside, but Randall's stomach couldn't wait any longer, and his legs felt like they might give way if he didn't get some form of nourishment soon. He crept forward gently, placing his padded fingers and toes carefully onto the ground and limping slightly to one side as he held his broken arm against his chest.

Eventually he approached the pen. The feathered creatures seemed panicked at his presence and clucked and flapped about, but he wasn't put off. He identified a small door that acted as the entrance to this wire cage and, to his relief, found it could be opened with a simple lift of the latch.

Crawling inside, Randall briefly smirked. The animals were going crazy now, feathers flying everywhere and wings flapping in alarm. He quickly managed to corner one and found himself salivating at the thought of finally getting something to eat.

Randall's breathing became deeper, more fierce, as he bared his teeth and a low growl rumbled in his dry throat. He approached the cornered creature with no inhibition; it may well have been only a few days since his arrival in the Human World, but he was getting desperate and had realised that if he wanted to survive, he'd need to adapt without hesitation. All of the anger and frustration shortly before being banished was resurfacing but in a more animalistic form; he could feel some sort of a beast rise within him, and it needed to be satiated.

And so he grabbed the bird and snapped its neck in one swift movement. It stopped squawking immediately. He then roughly took hold of a tuft of its feathers, yanking them off to reveal the dimpled skin underneath, before pausing a moment.

The conscious part of his brain was screaming at him, that this was all wrong- what had happened to the microwave meals, the ready made food, the normal stuff? What was he _doing _going around killing random animals like this?

But the desire was too strong. He sunk his teeth into the still-warm flesh and, though he knew that if he could see himself, he would be revolted at his actions, an overwhelming feeling of satisfaction washed over him.

Hungrily, he bit again and again, tearing more flesh off the bone, blood trickling down his chin.

However, his pleasure was to be short-lived.

A pool of yellow light flooded out into the clearing and onto Randall and the pen; the door of the shack had been opened, and silhouetted against this bright light was the figure of a human.

"What the…?!" it exclaimed. Randall lifted his head and gasped. As much as he wanted more to eat, he wasn't going to hang around. He dashed out of the pen as quickly as he could, but for the second time in so many hours intuitively felt a gun being aimed at him.

And, again, for the second time, despite tensing himself for an onslaught of pain, nothing happened. He scampered away into the trees.

Yet this time, it was not poor aim that had been Randall's saviour. No, this time, it was mere curiosity that had saved his tail…

For the rest of the night Randall slept restlessly in a tree near the edge of the clearing where the shack was located. He'd been torn- on the one hand, this human (like all humans in that part of the world, it seemed) was armed and dangerous and staying nearby perhaps seemed counter-intuitive. On the other, Randall had gotten quite the taste for those feathered creatures, and food sources were hard to come by in the swamp. He figured that the human wouldn't spend _all _of its time in the shack, and so all the lizard monster had to do was wait for it to leave before making his move again.

It would be a longer wait than he'd expected, however. Throughout the following day, not once did the human leave his abode, and although the first bird had assuaged his hunger for a while, by the afternoon Randall felt the all-too-familiar pangs beginning to return. The only benefit they provided was as somewhat of a distraction from the constant pain from his multiple injuries, along with his thirst which had steadily been making itself known since he'd had his first Human World meal. Randall was in a sorry state indeed.

Yet he persisted, peering through the trees at the shack, waiting patiently. At one point he thought he'd seen some movement, a flash of red, but it disappeared as soon as he tried to identify it.

There were also some strange noises in the swamp during the day, noises that he'd never noticed before committing to his stake-out. Perhaps he'd been too frightened to notice them before. He was sure he'd heard the scream of a child- the scream of several children, in fact- but he couldn't identify the direction from which they came and he didn't want to leave his tree unnecessarily.

His energy waning, Randall fell asleep in the early evening. For the first time since his arrival in the Human World, he dreamt. It was an unnerving dream, more like a nightmare in some ways; he was back in his lair again, working on the SE, but it began to melt before his eyes, forming a giant metallic puddle on the floor.

And then he was melting, looking up, trying to scream but unable to, no sound coming out, just whispers and…and laughter. But not his laughter- the laughter of others. They were laughing at him. Cackling. Shrieking.

Randall awoke and within moments any trace of the dream was gone from his memory. For a second he struggled to identify where he was before reality slapped him round the face. It stung.

_The house. Right. The house. _

He glanced over at the shack and to his dismay saw a glowing yellow light through one of its windows, and the same tell-tale curl of smoke lifting from its chimney.

Randall snarled in frustration, his animalistic side edging out once more. He wanted food. He wanted food _now. _

Slowly sneaking down through the tree, Randall plopped onto the ground and began to make his way to the pen again, his muscles aching from sleep. A doubtful voice in his mind kept asking questions- why wasn't this place guarded? Why weren't there any guard dogs? He'd been taught about such creatures in his training, and this seemed like just the sort of place a human might have a guard dog. Why hadn't the human shot him when he had the chance?

But Randall was almost entirely acting on instinct by this point, and so any remnant of reasoning that might stand in the way of a full belly was pushed rudely to one side.

He was salivating by the time he reached the small wooden entrance to the cage. This was going to be good.

However, it wasn't to be as easy as last time. Randall tried opening the little door of the pen as he had done the previous night, but it was stuck. He scowled, fumbling with the latch, only to encounter the coolness of metal on his fingertips- a padlock.

Randall needed only a moment to decide he'd test his jaw strength on this thing, and so turned and pressed his face against the entrance, padlock firmly wedged between his teeth. But before he had a chance to clamp down on the metal, he spotted something sitting on the porch just metres in front of him- something his poor eyesight wouldn't have noticed in the darkness if he hadn't had turned his head in that direction.

Two bowls.

Hm. Randall was sure they hadn't been there yesterday…Though, again, his eyesight was poor at this moment- he might've missed them.

Nevertheless, his curiosity got the better of him, and he let go of the padlock and skulked forward, hunkering down as low as possible as he approached the entrance of the human's home. He began slowly climbing up the half a dozen or so steps that led up to the porch, becoming increasingly wary. This didn't feel quite right, and yet…

As Randall approached the bowls, his eye ridges lifted in surprise.

One was piled high with shredded, cooked meat, and the other was full to the brim with water.

Randall paused. Something in him really didn't like this, it really didn't seem right at all…He felt like he was being watched, although he couldn't see any movement at the two windows of the shack. He battled with his instincts for a good thirty seconds, torn and yet unable to pull together any rational thoughts, before finally giving up and plunging his face into the water.

His good upper arm curled around the bowl, tilting it so that he could drink every last drop. Once his thirst had been quenched, he turned his attention to the other bowl, panting in anticipation. He could barely contain his growls of contentment as he shovelled down the meat; this was somehow even more satisfying than his previous evening's meal.

Once he was finished, he stopped and looked up at the shack in front of him, gathering whatever thoughts he could. He abruptly chastised himself- what if the food had been contaminated? Or worse, full of poison?

The lizard monster suddenly spotted movement at one of the windows- the rustling of a grimy netted curtain. He _had _been watched.

Panic rose in Randall and so he turned tail and fled, unsettled at the feeling of being observed- of being manipulated.

Over the course of the following week or so, Randall returned every night to the shack to find the same meal and bowl of water placed out for him. He'd waited for as long as possible after the first instance for fear that whatever poison he'd assumed had been placed in the offering would begin to take hold, and yet no ill effects arose. And so he returned again and again, grateful for this small act of mercy.

However, it was a small act of mercy indeed; the food and water provided, although by far better than nothing, was not enough for Randall to build up his strength again and so only sustained him at his current level. Additionally, his injuries still plagued him, although he did find that his open wounds seemed to be healing more quickly.

A negative side effect of no longer having to roam the swamp for food was that he had more time to think. And the more he thought, the more he realised how disturbed his thoughts were.

The screams of children were almost constant now. They weren't very loud, sounding as though they were coming from far off in the distance, but they varied in pitch and intonation to such an extent that Randall often found himself fixated on them.

He also found himself spotting movement down on the ground below him whenever he was perched up in his tree. This wasn't natural movement, the movement of the swamp in a gentle breeze or of any animals that happened to be about. This was a jerky movement, as though the ground was fracturing, like a mirror split in two, a hole in reality spied out of the corner of his eye that evoked a lurching feeling in his stomach, that of falling freely, acid in mouth, shuddering of his bones, shaking of his emaciated frame. And yet when Randall oriented his attention to whatever the origin of this movement was, the fracture repaired itself, smoothing over, as though nothing had happened. He found himself increasingly on edge, waiting for that feeling again, expecting it, obsessing over it. That lurch. The acid. The fall.

He was losing his grip.

Another evening came, and Randall again approached the shack. Although he was still wary, this had become somewhat of a routine and the fears and doubts in his mind that had initially plagued him were now almost forgotten.

However, something about this particular evening instinctively struck him as being different, and as Randall came close to the porch, he realised why he'd detected a change in the atmosphere.

The human was there, sitting blatantly on the porch no more than five metres away from where the bowls were placed in their usual position.

Randall stopped at the foot of the steps. No matter how kind this human had been to provide food and water for him, his automatic reaction was that of fear and uncertainty.

And yet the human sat in the shadows of his porch, still and calm.

As Randall stared at the human, his good eye adjusted further to the deeper level of darkness in the porch. He could just about make out the human's outline; a large, broad man with rigid posture, gun propped up between his askew legs- a stance of confidence and authority. The human's eyes somehow gleamed blue in the darkness, and they were staring directly at Randall.

There was something reminiscent of the animal kingdom in this stand-off between the two of them, as though Randall were challenging the human's authority as alpha male of this patch of land. However, there was no competition to be had- Randall was submissive, lying almost flat on the ground by the steps, and the human stayed hidden and menacing in the shadows, as though daring the lizard monster to approach.

There were several minutes of this impasse, the two very different creatures staring at each other intently. Eventually the fear subsided in Randall and he turned and glanced at the bowls up ahead of him before turning back to look at the human.

He did this several times more before deciding that, heck, he was hungry and after all, if the human was going to kill him, wouldn't he be dead meat by now?

So he slowly crawled forwards, up the steps and onto the edge of the porch where the bowls lay. With a final curious glance at this strange, silent figure, Randall turned and tucked in.


	5. Chapter 5

I am so, so sorry that it's taken me this long to update. I promise I haven't fallen out of love with this story- in fact, it's probably partly because of how much I want it to be 'just so' that it's taken me so long to write this chapter. Plus life and all that jazz.

Anyway, as usual, please read and review- and, importantly, criticise! I really appreciate all of the reviews so far, and honestly, if there's anything I've gotten wrong, let me know. I think the Mike and Sulley interaction during the latter half of this chapter is particularly dubious, so any suggestions for that will be much appreciated.

One final thing- apologies that not much really _happens _in this chapter. I thought it was all sort of necessary to provide context for the rest of the story, but yeah, I promise all of this build-up will be worth it! For those of you that want action and not-very-nice stuff to happen, the next chapter will suit you just fine...

* * *

**Chapter 5 - Bonds**

Trust was not something Randall thought he'd ever feel again. And yet, with his frequent visits down to the now almost comfortably familiar shack, and the ever more frequent presence of the human sitting on the porch , there was definitely a hint of trust building up between the two- a flutter of it in his stomach each night as he eyed the human before hungrily devouring his meal. In fact, it was the only remotely stable emotion he had begun to feel in the swamp, in amongst his now regularly occurring breaks from sanity and flashbacks to a past life that now felt more like a dream.

One night, either Randall or the human must've broken their routine, as when the lizard monster skulked up to the shack in his usual manner, the human was not sitting on his porch as was his custom. Nor were there the two bowls of desperately needed nutrition that would usually be placed on the top step. Randall quickly scanned the darkness, the only useful light being emitted from the shack's small windows, betraying the presence of a fire within.

As he turned his head straight, he saw the human come out from within the shack, the opening of the door allowing more light to flood into the dark, boggy ground. The door opened wider and the light now bounced off Randall's face. He drew back, hunched down further, and resisted the temptation to hiss.

The human paused suddenly, seeming perhaps surprised by his visitor, and then held up two thick, leathery hands as if indicating that he meant no harm. He then turned and picked up something from a table next to the door within the shack; as Randall's eyes adjusted, he saw that it was his usual bowl of shredded meat. The human carefully approached, taking only two steps before lowering the bowl onto the floor, keeping his free hand raised at all times. He then repeated the action, this time lowering a bowl of water onto the floorboards of the rickety porch, and then backed up into the doorframe of his abode.

At first Randall's teeth had been bared in anxiety, his fronds raised and his eyes narrowed to slits. But as the human carefully moved about him, the lizard monster relaxed ever so slightly, his fronds dropping as his inhibitions similarly lowered. With the light source behind the human, it was difficult for Randall to make out more than a hulking silhouette; this man was large, wide, bulky, and would have been very menacing if not for his placid movements.

Randall then noticed how awfully dry his own lips felt, his tongue creeping from side to side in his cavernous jaw, attempting to conjure up some saliva. He took the hint and began to move purposefully forward, but before he could dip his head into the bowl of water, the human made a sudden action, causing Randall to leap back and snarl.

The human seemed to be…seemed to be gesturing something? Almost as though he were telling Randall to wait, to hold up…

_I __**can't **__wait, _Randall growled to himself, _I need something __**now**__…_

For a final time the human had turned away and when he turned back to face Randall, he was holding some sort of a jar. He knelt next to the bowls, now allowing himself to be within biting distance of Randall's mouth full of teeth, and sprinkled some sort of powdery substance into the water. For the most part it immediately dissolved, with just a few sprinkles remaining on the surface.

Randall was wary. What was this stuff that the human was adding to the water? And, more worryingly, had he been adding it all along?

He took several steps back, judging the risk to be too great. The human took issue with this, gesturing for this strange creature that he'd become oddly friendly with to come forward, to take the water and the food. In the shadows, Randall could just about make out an earnest, if somewhat crooked, smile forming on the human's face.

Against his better conscience, Randall took the invite and finally dove forward, hungrily devouring all before him. After all, he had no choice- it was this or starve. He certainly didn't have the capacity to go about finding his own food.

All the while, as Randall chomped and slurped his way through these strange offerings, the human stood in the doorway, watching calmly.

When Randall was finished, he immediately scurried away, back through the clearing and to the trees.

But for the first time, as he hurried back to his usual resting place, he looked back. And there stood the human, still watching.

And instead of feeling threatened by his gaze, Randall, for the first time in a long time, felt comforted.

* * *

Paperwork. Paperwork, paperwork, _paperwork._

Who knew that being CEO of a huge corporation involved so much darned _paperwork?!_

Sulley shook his head to himself, gazing about the mounds of the stuff on his desk and wondering what he was supposed to do with it all.

He sighed, defeated. He just wasn't cut out for this job.

With that depressing thought, he turned his awfully plush, executive swivel chair and looked out the window.

His office was situated on one of the highest floors of the building, perched in the intimidating tower that greeted the company's workers every morning and loomed over them every night when they left. Hence he was able to see not only the activity of the carpark below, but also hints of the streets beyond, outside of the factory's huge domain, where the architecture became less brutalist and more homely, rounded, personable.

He gazed at the horizon, the sky before him a startling blue, and sighed again.

Not only had he been struggling with the workload, but a lack of family time was really starting to grate on the usually laid-back monster. More than anyone, he missed Boo, the little girl who had been a constant comfort to him during these uneasy times of change; the integration of laugh power in a world so set in its ways had been difficult.

Whilst some had been willing to adapt to this change, whether it be due to acknowledgement of the superiorities of laugh power, or simply due to Sulley's endorsement of it, many had resisted and fought against the changes. At one point the fractionation had become so tense that a small riot had broken out in one of the factory's many canteens as these two opposing groups waged war. Despite simply being a large scale food fight, the angry sentiment behind the unrest had concerned Sulley and had left him suffering many sleepless nights.

It seemed that the worst of it was over, though; the proportion of voluntary comedians had been steadily increasing (Sulley had allowed both laugh and scare floors to remain in existence alongside each other, whilst encouraging current Scarers and their Assistants to give laugh power a go), there had been no real outcries or petty rioting for over a month, and now Sulley's biggest obstacle was that darned paperwork.

Well, that, and getting everyone to believe that humans weren't toxic. It seemed that this secondary source of unease would need a lot more time until it was resolved. Sulley was thankful that his alma mater, Monsters University, seemed to be full of surprisingly adaptable academics who were very much spurred on by this new source of research, and he hoped that the subsequent papers and academic endorsement of the concept would encourage more acceptance of the idea in the general public.

But until then, seeing Boo on a regular basis was not possible. Inevitably the CDA had discovered Mike's impressive handiwork, as much as both he and Sulley had tried to conceal it, and the door had almost been destroyed yet again- it was only Sulley's clever proposition that, in fact, the public being aware of the CEO's continued contact with a human child might convince them of their harmlessness, that managed to sway the CDA into allowing him to keep Boo's door.

Despite this concession, the door had been kept under heightened security and Sulley's visits had been limited to once a month at the very most. To him, it seemed like the CDA were desperate to maintain some illusion of control over the factory- in fact, their presence seemed ever more intrusive these days, to his annoyance. They seemed unable to accept the newly discovered futility of their existence.

"Good after-_noooon, _Mr. Sullivan!" called a singsong voice as Sulley's office door burst open.

A little green orb of a monster backed up into the room, using his behind to prop the door open as he carried two brown paper bags in his hands. The slouching CEO, who had been unconsciously resting his chin on his elbows, straightened up.

Mike plonked himself down on a seat opposite his best friend. "And how is the world's greatest CEO doing today? I brought _luuunch_!" He threw one of the paper bags to his friend, who, despite catching the gift, didn't look best pleased. Before giving his friend a chance to answer, Mike had already tucked into a tentacle sandwich.

"Mike," Sulley began, trying his best not to sound too exasperated, "I already told you, you've gotta _knock _before coming into my office." He pushed the paper bag to one side. "Things are- "

"- different now, yeah yeah, I know. What is it, our precious Mr. Sullivan can't find ten minutes to have lunch with his best pal?" The effect of Mike's accusatory tone and raised eye ridge was lessened slightly by the tentacle hanging out of one side of his mouth. And what had usually been a cheeky, endearing nickname for his friend, 'Mr. Sullivan', something which Mike liked to use to, in his mind, make his friend feel more comfortable in his new position of authority, was now almost being used as an insult. "Or does _Mr. Sullivan_ have too much _paperwork _to do?" he said mockingly.

Sulley glanced down at his desk. It did look pretty bad.

"Come on, Mike, you know how much pressure I'm under…" he began, though there wasn't much commitment in his execution. "The CDA…" He didn't finish his sentence; Mike knew all about the CDA's interfering manner, as though they were trying to catch out the newly-appointed CEO. In fact, for a long while, Sulley had wondered whether they were on his side at all. This, too, had been a source of sleepless nights. But Mike continued, undeterred.

"Which is why now, more than ever, it's important to spend time with the people who matter most, right?" Mike raised his eye ridge again, forcing eye contact with Sulley. "_Right?" _

Sulley failed to hold his gaze, and looked away.

"You know I want to spend time with you, Mikey…With you and everyone else…" His gaze had turned to a framed picture on his desk, one that Mike knew well: it was the drawing that Boo had done of her and her favourite monster friend- one of Sulley's most prized possessions. "But I can't let the factory go under just because I didn't do my paperwork. Right now, this stuff," Sulley continued, gesturing to the piles of paperwork in front of him, "This stuff comes first."

His tone was firm and final. Mike took the hint and got up abruptly.

"FINE then, _be _like that, 'Mr. Sullivan'! I'll just go and have lunch with people who _care_!"

For the first time in a long time, Sulley's temper was riled and he stood up, placing his knuckles on the desk and leaning forward as Mike walked towards the door. "You know, Mike, it'd be great if you could _empathise _with other people for once, instead of making everything about _yourself_ all the time!"

Mike turned, mouth agape, shocked at Sulley's outburst. Even Sulley himself was shocked at what he was saying- and yet…

"And _stop _calling me 'Mr. Sullivan'…You're worse than Smitty and Needleman," he muttered, sitting down and turning back to the window.

With one hand on the doorknob, Mike shook his head. "You know, you sound just like him."

Sulley continued to sit in silence, facing the window.

"…Just like Waternoose." Sulley's eyes widened at the comment. The little green monster had taken his hand off the doorknob and was now directly facing Sulley, gaining momentum and confidence in his thoughts. "'I can't let this factory die'. That's what he said, wasn't it? Sounds very familiar…"

Mike made to leave again. "You know, pal, I brought you lunch because I was _concerned _about you…But hey, it's your choice. You wanna drive away your best friend? _Fine._"

When Sulley heard the click of his office door closing, he sighed, deeper than ever, and buried his face in his hands.

This was all too much.


End file.
